@thermalmotion: Wow, that is the most arbitrary point allocation I've ever seen.

OK addiction is a real thing but I think this guy is taking the Mickey.

Sounds like he needs to take some responsibility for his actions & learn how to be an adult.

@LordTrexGuy: You're certainly entitled to your own opinion about your favourite game this year but I don't think any of your reasons for BB being a better game than Witcher are valid unless you're after a pure combat experience.

Witcher 3 had great writing but the real kicker is that it rolls into everything. The world fits together in a way that many open world games fail to achieve. The characters are great, the physical environments are beautiful & hideous & the story takes you through the environment in a way that you naturally stumble upon quests, not just seeking out dots on a mini-map. The game allows you to find & complete quests before being given them & quest-giver dialogue actually recognises that you've already done it.

If you aren't really an RPG guy, if you don't care about nuanced characters, tough choices & character progression, then I can see how you would favour a game that focuses on nailing the combat. I have zero nostalgia factor for old Nintendo games so there's no way I would put Mario Maker in a Top 25 but if people who like platformers say it's good, I guess I won't argue that.

Sidenote: it ran pretty smoothly on launch. Any massive open world game is bound to have a few bugs & The Witcher 3 ran a lot better than anything from Bethesda.

@Spartan_418: I gave up on waiting for SLI support & started playing a few days ago. I've put a few hours in & haven't encountered any major bugs yet. Performance actually seems to be pretty good, I get solid 60fps at 1920X1200 on a GTX970.

@DanZillaUK: Unless there's some moustache combing game that we haven't heard about. Or maybe some kale massaging game. That would be really hipster.

@saturatedbutter: Any choice other than The Witcher 3 is invalid.

Yeah, that's right, I'm gonna state my opinion as fact.

In all seriousness, Witcher set its goals high & achieved them. Rocket Soccer made a football game with cars, it wasn't exactly breaking new ground. It may be a fun game that you can put plenty of hours into but personally I feel like GOTY should be a game that pushes the boundaries a little - whether that be in graphics, narrative or mechanics. Otherwise the unlock screen on my phone can be counted a really good game: I connect the dots in the right order & I win almost every time.

MGS V got some great reviews on launch but most reviews were done under pretty controlled conditions & from what I hear, it gets a bit samey after a while. Also while the mechanics may be tonnes of fun, the story is ridiculous & probably deserves some points off rather than being ignored. The Witcher excels in story/characters, combat, world design & more. I wouldn't presume to think that it should be everyone's favourite game but it didn't really fail at anything.

@Cloud_imperium: AC Syndicate isn't a bad game. I wouldn't say top 5 but top 25, sure.

American patent law & thus international patent law is ridiculous. Copyright protects a specific implementation whereas patents protect ideas. Allowing patents to be granted & protected in the way that they are discourages progress & iteration.

If the idea of having player stats in a sports game change based on real world performance is protected, not just the specific video game code or method of collating data, then that's a pretty awful system. If somebody patented the idea of getting up in the morning & going to work, we would all be very poor. As the law stands, these guys may very well have a case, even if it ends in settlement rather than going to court. Trust me Fantasy Sports needs money now because they are running a gambling operation disguised as a sports game & that won't last forever.

@LpcWarrior: True but these guys aren't patent trolls. The patents are owned by FantasySports.com not a random company that bought up a bunch of patents in this case.

@balrogbane: Enemies' weapons can clip through walls but the player's bounces off them, that's an inherently unfair design.

Dark Souls isn't based around fairness, it's about learning the rules of an unfair system & exploiting the dumb AI. Enemies get locked into attacks & swing three times despite the fact that you're behind them. Sometimes they get around this problem by putting the enemy on a turntable, rotating his feet with no regard to momentum or any kind of physics. Dark Souls is a game designed by devs with great ideas but not the talent to execute them properly. I'm basing this on only having played the first Dark Souls but the turntable problem looked worse in 2.

If people enjoy Dark Souls, that's fine. I wish they'd just stop pretending it's fair.